Frozen - IceHeart
by LeGrande Grover
Summary: The conclusion of The Snow Queen and the FireHeart. With her wedding on the horizon, a tormented Queen Elsa chases a shadow into the depths of the castle and discovers a magic mirror. The mirror reveals the voice of Lind and promises that if she comes to the frozen kingdom of Lapland, Elsa will learn everything about the origins of her ancient magic.


**I**

Shadows and Mirrors

In the blossoming days of a new summer in Arendelle, the starry night sky had fallen away to a new dawn. The previous year had been full of storms and the kingdom was looking forward to not only the warmth of summer, but the looming celebrations that were just around the corner. Where one royal wedding had come and gone, seeing Princess Anna joined together with Kristoff, another was just beyond the horizon, marking the day that Queen Elsa would finally crown her king, though the apparent merriment on the faces of the citizens appeared as masks in light of the whispers being shunted throughout the castle, whispers of things that threatened to push that anticipated day of joy into oblivion, or tear it from the future all together.

Standing before his queen, Captain Johann had been dutifully reading the daily reports from a stack of papers in his hands, ironically filling in the position he had once held as Baron of the Royal Guard, though now his presence before her was not due to the machinations of his father, the former Regent, or any of his own desires. He was standing in as head of the Royal Guard due to a far cooler reason, and it showed by the apparent melancholy he had for the task. "The Kingdom of Overlake has responded to the wedding invitations and would like to send a delegation of fifty guests, of which I recommend politely responding that they limit their delegation to the direct royal family. We can't very well pack the chapel with so many guests that they're spilling out of the windows and into the fjord," he remarked, shuffling through his papers, which was dominated by the responses of other kingdoms to the wedding of Queen Elsa and Prince Yasha, something that had once burned bitterly in the depths of his chest, though now was nothing more than a duty to be handled.

Elsa was not paying attention. Her chin slumped into her palm, she had been staring past him with eyes lost in another world, for she had not been able to concentrate on anything for several weeks now, even when it was her duties to her kingdom or the details of her upcoming wedding. Johann was not lost on her mood and looked to her in concern, wondering if she had heard anything he said at all.

"Queen Elsa?"

The hail finally broke Elsa's trance and she flinched, looking down from her solitary throne to the captain that stood before her, as if trying to figure out how long he had been there and what he had been saying. "Hmm? I'm sorry, Johann. What were you saying?" she sighed, rubbing her eyes as she straightened her back, if only to try and break the posture that had frozen her so stiffly to the throne and at least try to appear like the queen that was expected of her.

Johann let out a worried sigh and let the papers fall to his side, his green eyes firmly upon her. He had rarely seen her so moody, which was a grand statement considering their past and how many of her foulest moods had been because of him. The reason for her mood was well-known, even outside of the castle, and he did not blame her for a moment for the way it consumed her. It was the same reason why he was standing before her in his previous capacity, in lieu of the true Baron.

"It's nothing that can't wait for another time, your Highness," he replied, shaking his head and hoping she would use the opportunity to go and rest.

Elsa nodded mindlessly, though not because she acknowledged his words, but because everything he had been saying seemed to blur together and became lost in the cold air that pierced even the warm summer breeze. The days were running together and being lost to the rhythm of her aching heart, and she could barely even recall what day it was, though she could vividly remember how many days had passed since she had been stricken by sadness.

Ultimately, there was really only one thing she wanted to hear from him and her eyes lifted, glimmering in some small hope that he would have some kind of news for her. "Have you found anything at all?" she asked, trying not to get her hopes up, but unable to do anything but hope.

Sighing again, Johann shook his head, showing that strangely enough this was something that was affecting him deeply as well. "I'm afraid not. No one has seen Baron Yasha for several weeks, and our scouts found nothing even outside of the kingdom. The expedition to Fria also turned up nothing," he reported, his brow crushed by the frustrations of losing the head of the Royal Guard. While his old self would have been overwhelmed by the opportunity before him, both in regards to the vacancy in the Guard and in Elsa's heart, he was solely concerned with the fate of his baron, and the effect it was having on his distraught queen.

"What could have happened to him?" Elsa whispered, knitting her hands across her lips as she leaned forward, once more falling into deep thought as to why Yasha suddenly disappeared from her life. They had been absolutely content, the happiest they had been since he came to Arendelle as they planned for their wedding. There were no more battles to be fought and no more villains to vanquish. They could just be together, yet they were not. The constant flow of responses to wedding invitations only made his continuing absence that much harder to bear and her chest felt like it was constantly being thrashed by a thousand ruthless crystals of ice and glass.

Johann was watching her agony with concern. "I don't know, but I promise you that I won't stop looking until I find him. You have my word," he vowed strongly, bowing his head to her and trying to convey his absolute dedication to that promise.

It made her expression thaw as she looked at him. "Thank you, Johann," she said, amazed at how far he had come from the wicked, scheming princeling that had done all he could to try and pry Elsa and Yasha apart. Since the moment the Regent had been unmasked, his son had dedicated himself to his duties to the kingdom and to the Queen, even swallowing the defeat to his rival Yasha and endorsing the betrothal of the two, bringing in line any of the lingering nobles that still murmured against such a union. The young man was now the strongest voice for Yasha's ascension to king, even though she could still see how bitter it was to lose the one he had loved since childhood.

She found his strength in that remarkable.

Disturbing their meeting, the doors to the throne room suddenly popped open and in walked Anna, walking gingerly across the empty floor with her eyes firmly planted on the two. She had expected to find her sister quietly mulling with dark clouds hanging above her, so finding her talking was a welcome sight, though a playful smirk was dancing across her lips as she focused her attention onto Johann, as if his mere presence had completely made her day. "Oh ho, what's this? In here making a move on the Queen again, Johann? What a sneaky little captain you are," she said, giving in to the persistent joys she had in teasing him about his sordid past.

Johann returned her smirk as he turned to meet her, giving her a curt bow and parrying her teasing as deftly as he always did. "Those days are behind me, Princess Anna, and I'm a better man for it," he replied, watching with quiet amusement as she was already trying to figure out how to continue their fencing match, though after giving a short glance to the expression on Elsa's face, he realized that his place was not in between the royal sisters, but out fulfilling his duties, which included finding the absent Baron of Guard. "In truth, I was just leaving."

"Queen Elsa. Princess."

After offering them both a respectful bow, Johann turned and marched out of the throne room, gesturing to the guards to close the doors behind him and giving the sisters their privacy. Anna watched him leave, amazed that he was such a different man, and her attention turned back to Elsa as she threw her thumb over her shoulder. "That one's come around, hasn't he?" she remarked.

Elsa nodded. "He has. It's hard to believe he's the same man as before," she agreed, though signaled with a frown that she was not really interested in talking about Johann and that her heavy mood lingered even in the presence of her beloved sister.

Anna picked up on her mood immediately and mirrored her frown. "Still no word, huh?" she asked, showing that she was also worried about Yasha, even if she tried to play it off in a lighter tone. It was no secret that Anna adored him. The frequency that she met him bred rumors, though they had never become nothing more than amusement between them, for they knew their attachment was not romantic love, but a powerful friendship, even if she still had a hard time convincing Kristoff of that.

In truth, her heart was just as broken by his disappearance as Elsa's was, even if she hid it better.

"No. Nothing," Elsa sighed, frustrated as she stepped down from her throne and walked to the side, looking outside the large windows, as if she would somehow find the devil's luck and see him standing there, looking back at her with a warm smile. Suffering the currents of her heart, she clenched her hands at her waist, consumed by the pain that his absence caused. Quietly, she was twisting the glowing ring on her finger and still marveling at how it was cold against her skin, the magically-forged metal a chilling reminder of how extraordinary her connection with Yasha was. "I don't know how to plan for a wedding when the groom has suddenly disappeared. I have no idea what to do, Anna." With all of the talk of the wedding, it only aggravated the pain in her heart.

She was not sure how much longer she could hold herself together.

Sensing her mood, Anna stepped up to her side and slipped her arms around her, hugging her tightly and laying her head onto her shoulder. The warmth of her sister instantly melted away the tensions she had on the surface and Elsa buckled against her, leaning her head in and closing her eyes. Her body shook a few times as she vented to the only other person she could relax with, with her sister carefully stroking her hair and trying to cheer her up as only Anna could. "You know, he's probably off sulking somewhere because he feels like making you marry him is an inconvenience or something like that. If you haven't noticed, he's kind of a drama queen, er...prince...uhm, baron. Wait, what is he again?" she said, feeling Elsa's body shudder in a bleak laugh but finding that it made her feel better as well.

Being comforted made Elsa's heart calm down and she slowly looked to the floor, her smile fragile and her eyes looking for the answers that had so far eluded her. "Do you think he's all right?" she asked quietly, not able to completely let go of her fears.

Anna dismissed her concerns with a burst of air rippling her lips. "Are you kidding? He's a drama queen, but he's also the most stubborn man I've ever met. I don't think anyone could make him do anything he didn't want to, and after everything we've been through, I'm actually starting to wonder if he's immortal or something," she replied, though seeing as it still did not wash the concerns from her, she decided to dismiss the jokes and tell her sister exactly what she knew in her heart, as she affectionately reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek.

"Don't worry. He'll come back. I know it."

The feeling of her hand on her cheek made Elsa give in to her consolation, nodding as she could do nothing more than accept her sister's word. In truth, she also believed in him, even if she could barely stand a moment without him. Whatever his reason for leaving her, she was confident he would return.

Believing was the only thing her heart could do.

Feeling tired from the constant worrying and eager to move on from the painful subject, Elsa shook off her mood and slipped her hands into her sister's, facing her fully and giving her every part of her attention. If she were to spend every waking moment in despair, she would miss the other important things in her life, especially the one that was right before her eyes. "Well, enough about that. How are you feeling? How's the little one?" she asked, her eyes falling down to the visible bump at Anna's stomach and her lips spreading in a genuine smile.

Anna's face stretched as she sighed dramatically, rolling her head along her neck. "Ugh, don't ask. The doctor told me everything's fine. The nursemaid told me everything's fine. Nobody told me about the backaches and the heat waves, and don't even get me started about the cravings!" she groaned, showing her thrashing mood as her sister looked on. "Do you know what I ate last night? Pickles and ice cream. I don't even like pickles, though if you happen to stick them in a creamy bowl of ice cream, they're increeeedible."

Elsa laughed, finding that while not many things could really get to Anna, this one certainly shook her up. "I guess that comes with being pregnant. You should have thought of that before you married Kristoff," she said.

Anna glared at her. "Oh, you don't want to talk to me about Kristoff. Kristoff is the whole reason I can't sleep at night. _Sleep on your back, Anna. Sleep on your side, Anna. Put this pillow under your legs, Anna. _If that man gives me any more advice about how to sleep, he's going to be out sleeping in the stables with the reindeer," she threatened, wishing he was there to hear it.

"I thought he liked sleeping with the reindeer," Elsa remarked.

"He does! But that's not the point," Anna replied, feeling heated at the conversation and happy to have someone to vent at. "Do you know what he did when he found out I was pregnant? He read a book." For a moment, she waited for that to have the same kind of effect on Elsa as it did on her, though her sister seemed lost on the significance. "Kristoff doesn't read books! You know, unless it's about ice or something. So he reads this book all about how to _help_ your pregnant wife deal with this…thing growing inside of her."

"That sounds sweet," Elsa said, thinking that doing all of this to try and help Anna was very much like Kristoff.

"It sounds idiotic!" Anna shot back, not giving him the same benefit and clawing her fingers, as if she were strangling him. "Everything in that book is wrong! It said to massage my feet to help with the swollen ankles, but he's so clumsy with his fingers that I almost kicked him off the end of the bed. He knows my feet are ticklish!"

Elsa could not help but feel sorry for Kristoff, even as she was trying to sympathize with her pregnant sister. Just imagining him stumbling through her tantrums made her laugh once more, wondering if she should spend more time with Anna just to give him a break. "Poor Kristoff," she said, letting her thoughts slip.

It was obvious Anna did not appreciate her siding with him. "Poor Kristoff? How about poor Anna? I'm the one eating everything in sight and getting fat and suddenly crying at the dumbest little thing that just happens to pop up in front of me!" she replied, though Elsa still seemed too amused at her complaints and it made her scowl at the smile that had finally made its way back to the Queen's face. "Oh, just you wait. When it's you that's raiding the pantry and trying to figure out how to get comfortable in bed, I'm going to stand here just like you are and only worry about how Yasha is…"

The return back to the delicate subject made Elsa's expression weaken and Anna instantly knew she had moved in the wrong direction, for she faded away in her thoughts and anger, reminding herself that there was no place to sit and joke about how Elsa would feel when she became pregnant when the man she was set to marry was not around to perform the necessary acts.

"Oh Elsa, I'm sorry," she said, feeling her temper retract and her heart shift gears.

Elsa sighed, but then shook her head, not wanting to revisit that path. "No, it's fine. We need to start thinking of what will happen when he does come back, even if I'm not so excited to enjoy the same wonders of being pregnant like my poor little sister," she replied. Elsa's apparent management of her sadness made Anna relax and squeeze her sister's hands again. On some level, she was surprised with how well Elsa had been handling it, for when she tried to imagine Kristoff suddenly disappearing from her life, she felt she would not have the same level thinking as her sister was suddenly showing, and just the thought of it made her decide to let up a little on him. At the same time, she was also planning on what she would do when Yasha finally made his way back to Arendelle. She imagined it would involve a lot of yelling and possibly making good on all of the various threats she had thrown at him since they met, as payback for how much he was making them worry.

Then, she would make him spend the next lifetime or two apologizing to them both.

Elsa, hiding her hurting heart and showing the playfulness she had before, suddenly turned and locked her arm into Anna's, an impish expression working over her face as she decided it was far more important to take care of her pregnant sister at the moment, even if it was in a whimsical sort of way.

"Now, why don't we go see if we can find you some pickles down in the kitchen, and you can tell me more about just how much fun it is to be pregnant."

* * *

><p>Later in the evening, when most of the castle had gone to bed, there was a pale glow burning through an open door in the castle, its lonely light projecting in angular lines across the empty hallway, signaling that someone had entered Yasha's room. Elsa stood by herself, her arms tucked into her body as he stared into the vacant room. She had been standing there for longer than she remembered and a despondent sigh slipped through her lips as she rested her head against the door, her mind trying to unravel the mystery of her missing fiancée. Her fingers were playing over her ring again, wondering if she would ever get the chance to finally marry him and begin the days of their lives that should have burned brighter than any before. With a bittersweet smile and her eyes wandering over the room, she thought on how even now it did not have much that reflected on him, though compared to those first days in the castle he now had a much larger imprint on the room. There were decorations from the artisans of Fria, a reminder of his homeland and his people, but there were also signs of Arendelle, mainly gifts given to him from the people whose lives he had touched, bringing balance to the once monochromatic room. In a vase on the desk, there were wilting stalks of foxglove, a flower that he claimed reminded him of her. Next to the vase was the seal of the Baron of the Royal Guard, left standing erect in its case, yet untouched next to a growing pile of documents that required its attention. The fireplace at the center of the room was cold and unused. The bed had not been bothered in weeks.<p>

The room cried loneliness to her, and her heart resonated loudly.

Perhaps the most telling thing about the room was not in what was left there, but what was missing. No matter how many times she had looked, she could not find the black-bladed dagger named Xenocryst, meaning that when Yasha had left, he had been armed. It was a relic of his past and the focal point of his turbulent heart, the part of him that frightened her and made her wince every time she saw the exotic blade. Since becoming Baron, he did not carry the weapon with him, so its absence was the biggest reason why she had such trouble simply waiting for him to come back.

"Where are you?" Elsa asked the empty room, running her hands up and down her arms, as if she were trying to warm herself as proxy to his embrace. In spite of the brave face she showed, her every thought, waking or otherwise, had been cast by the void he left in her heart, and while she had been honest in her belief he would somehow return to her, she felt like there was something she should be doing, or somewhere she should be going.

Desperately, she wanted to know what she had to do in order to bring him back home.

As she stood there, struggling to feel the lost heat in his empty room, the flame in her lantern suddenly flickered, sending a wave of dancing shadows throughout the room and catching her attention. It was not as much the flicker of light that captured her, but rather the strange, familiar feeling that crept up her chest, lodging itself there, as if a lover were breathing softly across her skin. Straightening, she suddenly felt a presence in the hallway and picked up the lantern, then took a quick step into the dark corridor to try and figure out if anyone else was there. Squinting and hearing her heart beat faster, she thought she saw a shadow somewhere far down the hallway and lingering just at the edge of the light from her lamp. Its blurry form made her gasp slightly, though she found that she could not simply dismiss it as her eyes, or her heart, playing tricks on her.

"Hello? Is someone there?" she called, though the cavernous hallway was quiet in response and the shadow seemed fade away from her sight. Her first reaction was to doubt her eyes, for she was tired and torn by emotion, but there was something alluring about shadows in the night and she slowly began heading down the dark hall, unsure there had been anything there at all.

The castle felt uncommonly still and Elsa moved forward reluctantly, pausing every once and awhile to look behind her but finding the path behind her just as quiet, as if the shadows that surrounded her were at once both her origin and destination. No matter how she moved the lantern or how quickly she walked forward, she could not see the shadow for anything more than a moment, and it seemed to lead her away from the heart of the castle, down several flights of darkened stairs and winding through the quiet dark.

Her mind was trying to convince her heart of the silliness chasing a shadow through the castle, though as she finally came to yet another long hallway, her feet suddenly came to a stuttering halt and her eyes widened. At the other end of the hallway, there was no shadow, but a figure of a man lingering before a large portrait of the King and Queen, Elsa's parents, as if it blended in with the scraping strokes of ancient paint. Elsa's heart was in her throat as she lifted the lantern and tried to focus on the figure, finding that its black outline almost faded like mist into the darkness, making her unsure where it began and ended. Truthfully, her reaction was to call for the guards, for this shadow was obviously real, yet did not seem to belong there, though a strange beating of her heart made her hesitate, instead taking a few steps forward, her red lips quivering in the dark.

Possessed by her heart and feeling her mind strangled by its desires, her eyes began to play tricks on her and her voice suddenly summoned the name of the one she longed to see, despite the impossibility of it being true.

"Yasha?"

While no reasonable expectation would have allowed her to simply make him appear before her, she wanted nothing more than this shadow to be her betrothed, so much so that she willed it with every beat of her heart, wondering if magic could grant such wishes. The shadow stirred at hearing the name, then slowly turned to her in the dark, revealing its ashen face and making Elsa gasp loudly as the lantern dropped from her hand and clattered to the floor at her feet, its flame still dancing wildly. Staring back at her from under the hood was a mask, but it instantly registered in her memory. It was a mask of the guards of Fria, with its metal maw fanged sharply down around a grated mouthpiece and two dark eyes staring back at her. She still saw them around the town and the market, though they were little more than trinkets now, yet where this mask most brightly burned in her memory was in the dented one she had picked up from the cavern floor of Yasha's grotto, on that day long ago when she had first met him.

It was the mask Yasha had worn when he kidnapped Anna from the castle and set their entire future into motion.

While she was speechless and frozen in place, the masked man stared back at her, not answering. A tranquil moment lingered between them and Elsa truly thought she was dreaming now, but the dream suddenly cracked as the shadow slowly turned and continued heading away from her, denying her the response she desired to hear.

Seeing him leave, Elsa suddenly rushed forward into the darkness, leaving the lantern glowing brightly behind her, her eyes wide and her heart racing. "Yasha, wait!" she cried, passing the portrait of her parents and entering yet another hallway, where she saw the figure continuing on and disappearing down another darkened flight of stairs. Scrambling frantically in the dark, Elsa stumbled against stone walls and tripped down uneven stairs, but her eyes never moved from the shadow that stalked before her and her feet never stopped in their pursuit. Her heart was racing and her breath hissed loudly in her ears, making the world seem like a cold, dark blur around her as she stumbled down into the deepest parts of the castle where people rarely went. The shadow's movements defied logic, for as slow as it was moving, her hurried pace should have allowed her to capture it, yet every corner she turned found the figure far beyond her reach, as if she were fated to never catch up.

After a desperate chase that left Elsa panting and pushing through a slightly parted door, she suddenly cried out as she bumped against a ghostly form before her, her fingers clawed out and her heart roaring loudly in the night. It took a moment to calm down, but she quickly assessed the rigid object, her fingers splayed out into the darkness. It felt like an old table, though a dusty white sheet had been draped over it to try and help it endure its storage. The room she had entered was filled with unused furniture and forgotten ghosts, making her look around fearfully, but still searching out the shadow that had so far eluded her. Without her lantern, she could barely make out anything, with only ambient moonlight sneaking in from thinly-slotted windows near the high ceiling barely lighting her path. There did not seem to be any other ways out of the large room, though she could not tell what lingered at the other side, as it was cavernous and frightening, and she struggled to keep moving forward.

That was until she saw the shadow standing just beyond the periphery of darkness, motionless and real, as it if beckoned her to continue.

"Yasha! Please wait!" Elsa cried, sliding past the table and immediately bumping into another shrouded ghost, making her almost spill onto the covered couch. Her temper flared as she felt like the ghosts were impeding her reunion with her fiancee and despite stumbling, she began to weave her way through them, her eyes locked on the shadow, while her breath filled the silence and she coughed in the musty air. "Why won't you answer me, Yasha?" she asked, encouraged that the figure was no longer running, but chilled at why he would not respond. A part of her feared that this was all just a dream and that she was truly chasing shadows, but the way the terrifying mask stared back at her dispelled common sense and she could think of nothing more than pulling away the mask to find her handsome prince smiling back at her, reaching out to touch her and tell her that everything was going to be all right.

Just as her heart was warming and she was coming into reach of the masked man, Elsa suddenly felt her body wrench her back and bring her to a halt, something that made her cry out again and look backwards fearfully. Instead of some monster clutching at her, she found that the cape of her dress had gotten caught between two pieces of furniture, preventing her from going any further. Pulling on the cape, she suddenly looked back to the figure, hoping he had not slipped away from her and grunting at the way the ghosts restrained her. The masked shadow remained and Elsa let out a sigh of relief, though she continued to try and pry her dress loose as she looked at him, frantic that he was so close, yet just beyond reach.

"Why won't you say anything? Is something wrong?" she panted, though she suddenly felt tired from the chase and let her grip loosen on her dress, feeling that as long as he was there, she did not have to worry anymore. As long as she had him in sight, she felt like everything was going to be okay and she tried to catch her breath. "I was so worried when you disappeared. We've been looking for you everywhere."

The silence of the shadow did not warn her and she continued to embrace relief at her lover's apparent return, oblivious to the darkness around her.

"I've missed you so much," she called and looked to the the figure with hazy eyes, hopeful for his warm response.

Suddenly, the masked figure began to step back and fade into the darkness once more, making a flight of panic rise up in her as she reached her hand out to stop him. "Wait! Where are you going? Don't go!" she cried, her outreaching hand seeming like it could simply close around him, though he was maddeningly out of reach and slowly drifting out of her sight. With her dress still caught, she began wildly pulling on it again, trying as hard as she could to reach him before he faded away, until finally the cape tore and released her, sending her stumbling forward into the dark until her hands crashed painfully into something and she felt her body come to a grinding halt.

Slowly opening her eyes and feeling something cold and hard at her fingers, Elsa found there was a face before her, but not the one she had expected. Instead of Yasha, she found that it was her own face that stared back at her, her eyes wide in shock and her mouth hanging open. Her hands were pressed against the stone wall at the other end of the room and framing an ancient, ornate mirror, while the shadow she had been chasing was nowhere to be seen. Finding the mirror staring back at her made Elsa pant a few strangled breaths, her eyes searching her own face for revelations, then slowly lean her head forward, letting a choking sob well up in her throat, her foreheads touching. The entire chase suddenly seemed like a prank played upon her by a lonely heart and she began wondering if the shadow had existed at all.

Bitterly, she hated her heart for offering such false hope.

"_Elsa_."

The sound of her name made Elsa's head snap up, staring at her own reflection with her breath trapped in her seized throat. The voice was distant, but frighteningly familiar. She immediately suffered the same sin as she projected her desires into reality and searched the reflection for any sign of the shadow.

"Yasha?" she asked, her own voice echoing into the empty room.

"_Elsa._"

This time, the voice was clearer, feeling closer and even more familiar. As her eyes searched, a subtle turquoise glow began to churn within them, filling the darkness with a glow that seemed to cover the frame with ancient markings, though so dimly that she did not see them at first. She also could not fool herself into believing this was Yasha's voice, for it was that of a woman, and it stung painful in her memory.

"Who are you? Where are you?" she asked, her eyes searching around.

As if answering her and the glow in her eyes, the depths of the mirror erupted with light and instantly snared her, for there was nothing else in the room but the ghosts that haunted the darkness behind her. There were swirls of light and dark in those fathomless depths, as if an entirely different world existed between reality and reflection, and Elsa was astonished at their beauty, though the fearful mood of the dark room still composed her and she felt an overwhelming urge to step back from the mirror.

Despite that, she remained chained to it.

"_You've finally come_," the voice called, chilling her for its spectral tones and its elusive origins. "_It's time for all of your questions to find answers. It's time for you to come home._"

The voice was now lucid and Elsa could no longer escape the realization that seized her, for she suddenly remembered the last time she had heard this voice and why it struck such a desperate chord within her. Memories of the monstrous form of King Nazir flickered through her mind, his lava-stoked rampage destroying the kingdom of Fria and threatening to devour all that escaped it, while the voice that she now heard had been speaking through her own lips. It was a voice that thanked the lifeless Yasha for destroying the FireHeart, then turned on the monstrous Nazir to encase him in an eternal tomb of ice and snow, after bidding him a bittersweet farewell. These memories burned within Elsa as if it had only happened yesterday and she suddenly felt the significance of hearing them once again.

"Lind? Are you Lind?" she asked, almost fearful of the answer as her eyes continued to glow brightly.

The voice seemed pleased. "_Come to me, my child, and I'll reveal everything to you about ancient magic. You'll find me to the north, in the frozen kingdom of Lapland. Come to me, and I'll give you everything you've ever wanted_," it said, then began to fade away as the swirls in the mirror followed suite, slowly slipping from view as the mirror became black and dull.

Elsa panicked, gripping the edge of the mirror. With everything that had happened since last hearing her voice, she had nearly forgotten about Lind and her connection to her icy powers, so to have her sudden reappear in her life, especially in conjunction with Yasha's disappearance, made an overwhelming fit of emotion grip her chest as she tried to strangle more answers from the dying mirror. "Wait! What do you mean you'll reveal everything? Answer me, Lind!" she cried, her magic causing frost to creep through the ornate designs of the mirror and turn it from a brilliant gold into a pale blue, while the blackened surface began to crack and splinter. Her heart was raging out of control, taking her powers with it, and she once more feared the resonance of her magic with the voice of Lind, though she was willing to risk reliving those memories if only to have a few answers to her many questions.

At the moment, it felt like her hurting heart had only questions to keep it going.

In response to her magic and in a brilliant burst of light, the mirror suddenly shattered in Elsa's hands, making her cry out loudly as she was thrown to the stone floor, her eyes full of dust and her body twisted in pain. Her chest felt like it was being pierced by countless shards of glass and an overwhelming cold overtook her. Even her voice, which wanted to cry out to those that would help her, was silenced by the pain and a thousand ghostly images flashed through her mind, as they had once before when Lind had first touched her heart. An entire lifetime of pain and loneliness impaled her, choking the breath from her chest, until she finally felt blackness wash through her and she went limp on the stone floor, alone and in the dark.

A dark sleep overcame her, giving her the rest she had been denying herself since the loss of her betrothed, but saturated in ancient magic. It was a dreamless slumber, and Elsa remained in the dark for a long time, her breathing pulsing in the silence and her body shivering, until another sound permeated the room, stirring the silent ghosts and pounding off the ancient walls. A pair of heavy boots approached the sleeping Queen as the masked shadow had come once again, the devilish face staring down at her and its black body still blending effortlessly in the darkness. After looking over her helpless form, the shadow slowly knelt down next to her and reached out a black hand, striking a bright contrast against her white skin even in that dark room. The hand reached out like a demon's claw, yet carefully brushed aside the hair that had fallen in Elsa's face, giving the shadow a clear view of her beautiful features and the way her lips were pulsing with soft, tormented breaths. Seeing the angelic sight before him, the shadow appeared taken by her, running the back of his black fingers down her cheek softly, while two eyes gazed at her from behind the mask, making sure to consume as much of her as the darkness would allow. As gently as a shadow could, the figure's hand moved down her body until it rested on her hand that was clutched to her chest, the black claw closing around her white fingers and raising it up towards the fanged mask, as if the demon would begin to devour her at any moment. With both claws clutching her hand, the figure hunched forward solemnly, placing her curled fingers against the metal grate over its mouth, then ceased to move entirely. The only sound it made was a low, shuddering breath as its chest rippled forcefully in response to the moment it had with the radiant Queen.

If by reacting to the way it was prostrated before her, Elsa's face twisted slightly as her lips parted to utter a single name to the darkness, the one name that dominated her for what seemed like an eternity.

"Yasha..."

With the name echoing in the dark room, the shadow suddenly lurched to its feet, watching as her hand settled back down to her chest as she continued to sleep, though now looking not nearly as peaceful as her brow was furrowed and her face appeared sad. Feeling the weight of the moment, the shadow trembled in the dark, then stepped back from the silent Queen, its black body fading into the darkness once more and leaving only the bright sheen of the mask, until it too disappeared into a swirl of fire that blew back the darkness for a moment, and then left Elsa alone in the room. She would lie there, unconscious to the waking world beyond the windows and unaware that when she finally awakened from the night, there would only be more questions for her, along with the ghostly summons of a voice from her heart and a place where she must go to find her answers.

Even in her sleep she could remember it, spoken by Lind's crystal clear voice.

_You'll find me to the north, in the frozen kingdom of Lapland._

_Come to me, and I'll give you everything you've ever wanted._

_My child._


End file.
